A tricky operation for women

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Trainee urologist Janelle Brennan says a lot of her friends have felt the need to hold off on partnerships until they have finished their surgical training.

Some of Janelle Brennan's female surgeon friends have given up the job because they found its intensity was harming their relationships.

But Dr Brennan has decided her interests at present lie in the pull of the surgical needle and thread rather than any tug on her maternal heartstrings. The 29-year-old is training at St Vincent's Hospital to be a urologist. "I'm single and that's pretty common among female surgical trainees," she said. "A lot of my friends are single or have held off partnerships until they've finished their training, and I know girls who have left because they've felt they haven't been able to spend enough time with their partners."

Dr Brennan does not rule out substituting a family for the satisfaction of helping patients, but said her job was stimulating.

"You've made someone better by removing their cancer by using your technical skills, and that's a very rewarding thing," said Dr Brennan, one of those rare creatures, a female surgeon: less than 10 per cent of Australian surgeons are women.

A study to be presented at a surgeons congress today shows women are turning away from surgery because it is the hardest area of medicine in which to balance work and family. Eugene Ek, a surgical trainee at St Vincent's, surveyed more than 250 final-year medical students, half of them women.

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"The main reasons that females say they weren't interested in surgery was because of lifestyle and family issues," he said. "Also, the working environment and lack of female role models was a big factor."

Another problem driving women away is that they may be too close to 40 by the time they are fully trained, which takes about 10 years on top of six years of medical school. An aspiring surgeon who also wants to be a mother may be forced to choose between the two.

Royal Australasian College of Surgeons senior office bearer Trish Davidson, who is responsible for surgical training, said the college was looking at ways to get more women into surgery. One change that would be made was reducing surgical training to a maximum of eight years "with a possibility to do it in six if you're competent at all elements", she said.

"It's clearly important that the brightest and best have an opportunity to enter a surgical career which, despite it being demanding, is intensely rewarding."